#76.2 Spirited Speyside!

Another Diageo workhorse: Benrinnes

TL; DR: Day two of Spirit of Speyside 2026 started with a relaxing morning at Moray Leisure Centre, then the Dufftown Whisky Fair and a fun Dewar’s Aperitivo by the Spey. Monday brought a rare tour of 200-year-old Benrinnes, Diageo’s rich-and-heavy workhorse, with a nerdy tasting in the still room. A great experience, but at £100 a head, still hard to call great value for casual drinkers.

(Missed Part 1?)

Our second day at the Spirit of Speyside 2026 festival started with a non-whisky activity. As this is our fourth year running, we only have a handful of distilleries left to visit (check out our visits in 2023, 2024 and 2025), so on Sunday morning we had a relaxing time at the Moray Leisure Centre, in Elgin, taking advantage of their sauna, steam bath and jacuzzi.

After a couple of hours there, we felt smooth and relaxed enough to drive to Craigellachie and then get a cab to Dufftown for the Whisky Fair: it is like a “festival within the festival” organised by the local community (including our pals Sue and Gordon), mostly showcasing independent bottlers and small producers.

Sue and Drambo, always nice to meet you!

Whisky and banter.

There are many very tasty drams (plus, the revenue goes to charity), and a glass, a snack and a hot drink are included in the £38 (plus £1.33 fee) ticket: win-win-win! When that was over, we took a cab back to Craigellachie to attend another event organised by the Dewar’s dream team: the Aperitivo at the Old Craigellachie Bridge, on the Spey. There we had three great drams: the Craigellachie and Aultmore Spirit of Speyside bottlings, and a Craigellachie 37yr. Again, great fun and value for money (only £7.76 inc. fee!): this is one to keep an eye on for next year too. After a long (maybe too long, someone would argue) session with friends in a whisky bar in Craigellachie, we went to sleep in our van, which we had parked in a small car park near the Fiddich water.

Nice location for an aperitivo…

…and what an aperitivo!

On Monday morning, we took advantage of the bank holiday for one last distillery visit: Benrinnes distillery, at the bottom of the namesake mountain (which we had climbed on a sunny morning in 2024!). They are renowned for producing a heavy and rich spirit, which we can confirm thanks to some Watt Whisky and Cadenhead’s bottlings we got on our last two trips to Campbeltown (the former finished in an Armagnac cask, the latter in Madeira). Thus, we were looking forward to this visit! The distillery is 200 years old (!!) and today is one of Diageo‘s workhorses. As it is usually closed to the public, the tour was given by Georgina, a distillery operator, together with Scott (manager) and Ben, who usually works at Talisker. The distillery was destroyed and rebuilt twice, first after a flood (1829) and then after a fire (1896). Other notable dates are 1964, when Saladin boxes were installed to malt the barley (they are still there, but in a building we couldn’t visit, and were used until 1984), and 1966, when they doubled their capacity. While listening to the history of the distillery, they gave us a dram of Benrinnes 15yr Flora & Fauna: a nice touch.

Not beautiful, but somehow charming.

Nowadays, they use unpeated malt, mainly from Muntons in England: mostly Laureate variety, but sometimes they change depending on availability. For example, they recently processed a batch of a Scandinavian Viking Malt (that’s the name of the company, we learned). The distillery has 12 malt bins, working in six pairs, each one with a 40-tonne capacity, which are filled by deliveries of 27.5 tonnes at a time. From the bins, a conveyor belt takes the malt to a Buhler destoner installed in 2023, before it’s milled by the Porteus mill in “coups” of 25kg at a time. Each batch is made of 8.5 tonnes of malt and takes about four hours to mill. The husk/grit/flour ratio of the grist is the usual 20/70/10, and it is measured by an electronic shaker.

A relatively new destoner.

The distillery processes 12 mashes a week (working five days), although their maximum capacity would allow for 21. In each mash, the first 36,500 litres of water are added to the semi-lauter mashtun at 64°C, while the remaining 30,000 litres of water are added over a longer period of time from 64°C to 84°C. In this way they don’t have separate second and third waters, and this process is now common to many Diageo distilleries. The wort resulting from one mash is moved to one of the eight washbacks, and it is cooled to 16°C (although sometimes they discuss whether to leave it at 16.5°C) before 200/210 litres of liquid Mauri yeast are added. The fermentation time is linked to the production cycle: currently, they do nine “short” (63 hours) and three “long” (110 hours) fermentations.

Where the fermentation magic happens.

The fermented wash is pumped into the wash charger, before being double distilled. Low wines come out of the two wash stills at 21-23% abv, and they are charged into one of the four spirit stills: #1 and #3 are slightly smaller (4,500 litres) while the other two are larger (6,500 litres). Foreshots run for 10-15 minutes, then the spirit for around an hour and a half, and the feints for two hours. Cuts are done by hand, and the lower one goes down to 58%, picking up some heavy compounds that probably give Benrinnes its characteristic body. An interesting fact is that until 2007 they had partial triple distillation, but when they automated the distillery, they moved to the classic double distillation. The stills are heated by steam coils running on gas, and each one is equipped with a worm-tub condenser placed outside the distillery. Obviously, this requires a lot of water, which is then released into the burn after being cooled down to a maximum of 5°C. Fun fact: in spite of the filters, they found fish in the tubs, which they released (if found alive).

Lot of ongoing work in the still room.

Worm tubs, and Benrinnes in the background.

The distillery used to have cooperage and warehouse teams, and although they don’t fill casks on site anymore, they still have the equipment to do so, including the scales to weigh the casks. They also have fewer warehouses now, as warehouses 1 to 11 were taken down. We didn’t visit any warehouse, but we had a tasting in the still room, which was nice. We started with a 21yr Special Release 2024 (52.4%), then moved on to three cask samples: a 14yr (52.4%) matured in an ex-wine cask, a 22yr (51.7%) matured in a “column still rum” cask, and finally a 26yr (55.0%) matured in an experimental charred cask. An extremely interesting and nerdy line-up!

A tasting for nerds, yay!

With that, the experience was over: we then had some lunch in Aberlour, at the usual Gather’n Café, before slowly driving back to Leith. As we’ve written many times, every time we’ve had a tour with a distillery’s staff, it has always been a great and geeky experience, and the enthusiasm they have for what they do is truly refreshing! This tour was no exception, with Georgina and the team doing a fantastic job showing us around, explaining the nerdy details and answering the even nerdier questions. There is a “but” though, which is what we discussed last week at length: despite being within our budget, the £100 tours at Diageo’s distilleries are too expensive in our opinion, and it taints the experience. On the good side, the value has improved compared to the previous year, as the dram selection is definitely better curated (it was the same in 2025 at Glendullan and Inchgower, albeit at the latter they gave us very stingy measures – some were not even 1cl). Despite this, the experience is not great value for money, and it is really hard to recommend it to more casual fans and drinkers.

That’s all for this week! Stay tuned for something on the West coast (of Scotland, not California)! Until then, slàinte!

Benrinnes Spirit of Speyside Tour

Price: £103.50 pp (May 2026, inc. fee)

Duration: 2hrs

Tasting: Benrinnes 15yr “Flora & Fauna” (43%), 21yr Special Release 2024 (52.4%), cask sample 14yr (52.4%, ex wine cask), cask sample 22yr (51.7%, column still rum cask), cask sample 26yr (55.0%, experimental charred cask)

Target: whisky geeks and distillery baggers

Value for money: not great

Highlights: the amazing staff

Recommended: if it was cheaper, definitely

Link: https://www.spiritofspeyside.com/

#76.1 Spirited Speyside!

One last Dewar’s distillery: Aultmore!

TL; DR: This year Spirit of Speyside took us to Aultmore for a great tour and tasting. Fantastic value for money and, as usual, the staff were amazing. We closed the day in Elgin at Glen Moray distillery with our friend Justine for a sherry-and-whisky tasting with Iain and Diego. What a day!

After a three-week break, we’re writing this post from our holiday in Europe, a trip that took us all the way from Scotland down to Emilia, in Italy, and back. We visited some very interesting boozy places, and we’ll talk about them later in the year. This story, though, is about distillery visits much closer to home. This trip happened in early May, a period that for us means Spirit of Speyside!

It is an unmissable festival for whisky aficionados, especially for distillery baggers like us. The reason is simple: many distilleries that are usually closed to the public open their gates to give a glimpse of their production to whisky nerds like us. Anyone who has taken one of these tours will know how nerdy they can get, especially when a distillery manager or an operator is taking you around. On paper, this should be an easy business: we want to visit the distillery, they want the money. In practice, things are a bit more complicated, mostly because of greed. Unfortunately, some tickets got ludicrously expensive, with the worst offender being Chivas Brothers, with prices as high as £120 (Dalmunach!) and even up to £190 (Longmorn!!). So between the two of us, we decided to put a stop to this, and we set a limit beyond which we’re not willing to pay: £100, just barely enough to get into some of the second-worst offender’s distilleries: Diageo (more on this next week).

Fortunately, other producers seem to have whisky fans’ interests more at heart, and provide more affordable experiences. A great example is Dewar’s: they usually open one or two of their Speyside distilleries, Craigellachie and Aultmore, for about £25 (a bit more with fees), and they give all the proceeds to local charities. As a matter of fact, they also recently opened their non-Speyside distilleries (Royal Brackla and Macduff) for similar prices, and again they donated the extra income to charities. While we visited Craigellachie a couple of years ago (on a warm spring day!), this time it was the turn of their second Speyside distillery: Aultmore!

Ready for another great tour of a Dewar’s distillery.

This year was a short festival for us, so we left Leith on Saturday morning and arrived at the distillery, near Keith, after a 3-and-a-half-hour drive. We were welcomed by Matthew, their global brand ambassador, and Luke, who we’d met on previous tours. We were given a high-vis vest as usual, and the tour started in the courtyard. The distillery was founded in 1895 by Alexander Edwards, who also founded Craigellachie, and the architect was Alexander Doig, the “father of the pagoda ventilator”. The name means “big burn”, but the whole area was named “foggy moss” (this gives you a sense of the surroundings). The distillery was owned by the Pattisons, who went bankrupt a few years later, causing havoc in the whisky industry (if you are interested in this story, grab yourself a copy of Justine Hazelhurst’s book, Opening the Case). Because of this and the war, the distillery went through periods of closure, until it was acquired by Dewar’s in 1923, and so joined DCL. At the end of the 1960s, it was closed for a few years when it underwent massive renovation, saying goodbye to the malting floor and the pagodas. Together with Dewar’s, it was acquired by Bacardi in 1998, and it was expanded again in 2023. Nowadays, it has a capacity of 6 million litres of pure alcohol per year (mlpa), making it the biggest in the Dewar’s group.

A bigger operation than we thought.

They get their malted barley from Simpsons, using 100% Laureate variety, which is milled by a Porteus mill of unknown origin installed around 1970. Water comes from the nearby Auchinderran burn, which they add four times at increasing temperatures (64°, 75°, 81° and 83°C) to the malt in the full lauter German mashtun recently installed. They run 15 mashes a week, with 10t of malt each.

A big, shiny mashtun.

They have 15 washbacks (9 of which were added in the last renovation) for fermentation, which is triggered by 270 litres of liquid distiller’s yeast from Lallemand and lasts around 80 hours (longer than in the past). Byproducts of these phases are sent to Rothes to generate biofuel. They have two still houses with three stills each, heated by steam from green gas. The wash is divided into three and sent to the three wash stills for the first distillation, then to the spirit stills for the second. In this case, the cut points for the spirit are 76% abv and 62% abv, yielding about 4k litres of spirit. Like many other distilleries, they mix foreshots and feints with the next batch of low wines. The spirit is sent to the Central Belt in tankers, so there is no filling store on site.

Inside the still room…

…and outside.

The tasting, consisting of three Aultmore single malts, was very interesting. We started with a 15y finished for 6 months in a Sweet Marsala wine cask (46%, previously in ex-bourbon and Sherry casks). Here we learned that there are three types of Marsala: Sweet (with added sugar, aged about two and a half years), Ruby (less sugar, aged 5 to 6 years) and Dry (no sugar, aged 8 to 12 years). They created an Aultmore expression for each of the three, but we tried only the first one: nice, but indeed a bit sweet for our palate. The second dram was their 21y, from refill casks, bottled at 46%, while the third was the 16y Spirit of Speyside 2026 release (Exceptional Cask Series), from a single ex-bourbon barrel, bottled at 59.2%. These last two drams were belters, we loved them!

All ready for the tasting!

This stood out!

After the tour, we drove to Elgin, where we met our pal Justine, and together we went to Glen Moray distillery. There, we did a tasting with Iain, the Glen Moray brand ambassador, and Diego, a sherry expert, who gave us a fantastic Sherry-and-whisky tasting. It was a very fun experience: we loved the sherries, but mostly the Fino-cask-finished Glen Moray.

Such a fun evening at Glen Moray.

When sherry and whisky meet…

…nothing can go wrong.

What a great whisky day! Starting from the end, it is always lovely to meet Iain, and we love what Glen Moray are doing, having interesting expressions for casual drinkers, whisky beginners, and aficionados. And what about Aultmore? The Dewar’s team gave us yet another unforgettable experience, tailored to whisky nerds but without ripping us off. To be clear, we’re not just in it for the cheap stuff, we simply aim for value for money. Annoyingly, greed seems to be common in the industry. For example, some controversy recently arose when Dalmore reopened their visitor centre but priced tours at £250 minimum (of course we gave up visiting it). And when looking at distilleries that open for special occasions only like the Spirit of Speyside, we really struggle to understand how so many of them seem to just want to squeeze as much money as possible out of their fans, almost punishing them for wanting to visit. To be honest, even the £100 we decided to pay in some cases is pushing it. Distilleries also have the option of offering different types of experiences, making them more accessible, but this option doesn’t seem to be given much consideration. Thankfully, some companies like Dewar’s, but also Tamnavulin and Tamdhu, don’t follow this greedy trend and offer great experiences at very honest prices. Well done, guys!

Stay tuned for the second and last tour of this trip! Until then, slàinte!

Aultmore Spirit of Speyside Tour

Price: £25.88 pp (May 2026, inc. fee)

Duration: 1hr 30min

Tasting: Aultmore 15 Sweet Marsala finish (46%), Aultmore 21y (46%), Aultmore Spirit of Speyside release (16y, Exceptional Cask Series, 59.2%)

Target: everyone

Value for money: great

Highlights: the amazing staff

Recommended: absolutely

Link: https://www.spiritofspeyside.com/

#74.6 The Springbank Whisky School

Everything comes to an end
(day 5, Friday, and epilogue)

TL; DR: The final day at the whisky school was Teresa’s birthday and exam day: an open-book test marked by Findlay Ross himself, followed by awards from the distillery manager Gavin and a celebratory lunch in the Washback Bar. The post wraps up with our reflections on the experience: a unique, hands-on look at an old-school distillery, with great people.

(missed Part 5/Part 4/Part 3/Part 2/Part 1?)

The very last day, Friday, was Teresa’s birthday! (And yes, there was a cake involved thanks to Marie) Different to the previous days, we had a late (full Scottish) breakfast (8am instead of 7am), then cleared our room by 10am and showed up at the distillery for the exam at 10.30. It was an open book exam, so not too difficult, and Findlay Ross himself came to mark our tests. Obviously, we took the chance to ask him some nerdy questions. On reflection, it’s a shame that a Q&A with him was not included in the overall experience, that would have been uber-nerdy! But we can also see the challenges in doing it given how busy he must be.

Anyway, everyone scored more or less close to the maximum (including those who didn’t read some questions in full, lol) so after that, we headed to the Washback Bar and got our awards from the distillery manager Gavin (wonder if we can write that on our Linkedin profile…), together with the self-blended bottles. Teresa got an extra 20cl bottle of her choice for winning the Scholar of the Week award, “for her determination in rolling the casks”. She also got a dram from our good pal Aly, who was there waiting for the next tour. Not a bad birthday!

No pictures of the exam, so you get pictures of us learning…

We had lunch all together with Gavin, a cold platter with three types of salmon, cheese, oatcakes and other bites (thanks again Donald for the tasty haggis mini-rolls!). Another nice touch, they gave us the list of available cage bottles, and if we could buy up to two per person, avoiding the usual scrum in the morning before the shop opened. We weren’t greedy, so we just picked up one each: a Longrow and a Springbank. Actually, we got a third one for Gianluigi’s brother, who always appreciates some cage juice! After a wonder in the bottling hall (where the equipment was getting moved to the new building) and a couple of extra drams kindly poured by Chris, we got a goodbye pint with the others at Feathers before leaving the Wee Toon, feeling grateful but also a bit sad.

…and working “hard”?

What. A. Week. That. Was. We are wrapping the write-up of the whisky school a couple of months after the fact, after some other trips to London, Orkney and Speyside. Importantly, we had time to reflect on what we did and how this experience fits in the context of our whisky experience and knowledge (avoiding hard to use the word “journey” here, eww!) and of whisky hospitality more generally. Based on our experience up to now, it is going to be hard to match the Springbank Whisky School.

…for all of us.

First, it is a unique learning experience. We could see first hand how the distillery day-to-day operation looks like, with its challenges and peculiarities, the fast-paced moments and the slower ones. Many distilleries are fully or partially automated, where operators can stop everything from a computer keyboard. Definitely not the case for Springbank’s (or Glengyle), where we felt that the almost 200-year history still contributes to what is produced now, and to what will be made by future generations. Also, one week of intensive learning and “living” a distillery is not the same as visiting a place more than once – we got a lot of knowledge from our many distillery tours and tastings, but it’s only during this week that we understood and appreciated certain nuances of whisky making (please don’t take it as we now feel we know everything, quite the opposite if anything).

Find Wal..Stephen.

Second, we think that there is no other place like Springbank. We don’t want to sound too cheesy, but in a world where the most important thing seems to be shareholders’ returns, they decided to keep their own pace, and not to overstretch or up their prices by taking advantage of the pandemic frenzy that hit the world of whisky. Instead, contrary to many, they’re playing the long game. Yes, they almost doubled production around 2018 (before that, they were alternating malting and production), but they didn’t go crazy like other companies trying to add X million-litre-per-annum capacity, only to mothball other distilleries sometime later, with the consequent loss of jobs in often rural areas. Providing over 100 jobs in a remote place like Campbeltown is one of their prides, and it should be. So, for us, touching that reality for a week was really special and difficult to replicate, let alone that not all companies would allow a half-dozen geeks to roam around production for 20 weeks a year (for a price, more on that later).

A happy student/distiller.

Third, but not less important, the people we met, both the other “students” and the staff. It’s easy to bond with people sharing the same enthusiasm for whisky as you, so somehow we expected (and hoped) to get along with the other students, but we also couldn’t exclude the possibility of meeting absolute jerks or simply someone we wouldn’t connect with. We were lucky to spend the week with very nice and fun guys like Graham, Robert and Stephen, and hopefully we’ll reunite as a group at some point (at a future Campbeltown malt festival maybe?). As for the staff, their patience dealing with us and their efforts to make sure we got the most out of the time with them were genuinely impressive. We were most likely an impediment to their work more than anything else but still, everybody made us feel welcome, and it was great to hear people’s stories (for example, in shocking news to us, it turns out that many of the staff don’t like whisky).

Before rolling casks…

…and after (sort of).

So now, the elephant in the room: it is a very expensive experience, or at least, that was how we felt at over two grands per person. Something we really appreciated, though, was Springbank management not trying to sell it as an “ultimate luxury”, “premium” or whatever crap other companies are coming up with to try justifying their greediness, so to actively exclude whisky fans and tourists alike from visiting some distilleries (more rants coming on the blog soon probably). On the face of it, it did feel a bit overpriced, but at the same time we think it must be complicated (aka costly) to comply with all the legal requirements (including insurance) that can make the school happen…And let alone the time the staff take to show us around, explain processes and answer questions, plus the tastings and the tours, and the whole full-pension for a week. Also, as we said, we are not sure how much we really helped, except Teresa with her cask rolling determination, of course! Obviously, it is not like a tour you would do every year, and probably not even every other or so. For us, it was more of a lifetime experience, a gift to ourselves, and it really was a great one!

Thank you for a really great week!

So, here the important questions: in hindsight, would we still do it? Absolutely! Would we recommend it? If you’re a whisky enthusiast, and can spare enough time and money, definitely! Would we repeat it? Probably not, but maybe in a couple of decades (when enough changes might accumulate). Something we would do at some point, maybe for a special occasion, is the Barley to Bottle tour, which includes some of the fun activities of the school (an in-depth tour, the warehouse tasting and the blending session) and lasts five hours “only”. One of the many things we like about Springbank is that they offer a wide range of experiences, with tour prices starting from as little as £12 up to a lot: there really is something for everyone, from the casual tourist to the experienced whisky geek. And by attending any of these experiences, you will only increase the appreciation for their work!

That was a long one, we hope you enjoyed it! Next time something lighter, or maybe a rant, stay tuned to know! Until then, slàinte!

Springbank Whisky School

Link: https://www.springbank.scot/whisky-school/

#74.2 The Springbank Whisky School

Barley on my mind
(day 1, Monday)

TL; DR: First day of the Springbank Whisky School, so exciting! We spent most of the day in the malting floor – shovelling, grubbing and turning barley while understanding all the steps before milling. We were also treated to a walking tour to discover the sites of the many lost distilleries in Campbeltown!

(missed Part 1?)

On the Monday morning, we woke up early but excited: it was the first day of the Springbank Whisky School! A shower, then breakfast in the dining room: a full Scottish fried up by the lovely Marie, but also some fruits, yogurt, and toasted bread. It was a big plate, and as per usual Gianluigi helped Teresa clean it up! At 8am sharp Donald walked us from the Still Guesthouse to the distillery (only 5 minutes or so away).

Big breakfast for a big day ahead.

While arriving we saw (and smelled) grey peat smoke coming from the distillery kiln chimney: maybe no pope were made on that day, but still a very good sign! We met the distillery manager Gavin introduced himself and the school, gave us some study material, and briefly showed us around: first our lockers in the staff room, then a brief distillery tour.

Kiln in action!

But soon after, it was time for us to get “serious” and…Shovel barley! (We’ll spare you the jingle that Gianluigi came up with, but yes, there was a jingle about shovelling barley.) A little premise here: malting is a key part of Springbank’s production: for a long time, they were the only distillery where every step was done on site, from malting to bottling. Now Dunphail distillery (in Speyside) is also malting 100% of the barley on site, while other distilleries are at 10%-30% (Kilchoman, Laphroaig, and Bowmore on Islay, Benriach and Balvenie in Speyside, Glen Garioch in the East Highlands – we might have missed some). Most of the Scottish distilleries source malt from maltsters (or send theirs to be malted elsewhere, like Ballindalloch, Bruichladdich or Daftmill). For Springbank, the decision to keep malting in-house was not by accident, as for a period between 1960 and 1992 they also sourced it outside. It was Hadley G. Wright, the former chairman of J&A Mitchell (sadly passed away in 2023), who decided to bring it back to create more jobs for the Campbeltown community.

Malting starts by taking the green barley from the bins where the lorries unload it. When ready, it is transported with a conveyer belt through three hatches into the steep tank (13 tons if it goes to the slightly larger lower malting floor, 10 tons if it goes to the upper malting floor), where it is soaked with water for 14 hours. Water is then drained, and after 12 hours the barley is soaked again for another 14 hours. After draining, it is shovelled through another hatch if it goes to the lower malting floor, or shovelled outside the steep if it stays on the upper floor. That day we were on the lower malting floor, and a pile of wet barley was waiting for us, ready to be spread. So, for about 30-40 minutes, we shovelled barley on to wheelbarrows, that we then used to spread it on the floor, under the supervision of Joey and John, who levelled out the most uneven bits. Being five (plus the staff) doing it, it went quickly, and it was already time for the 10am break, when we gathered at the washback bar for a hot drink and some sweet treats.

Working hard. Were we doing a good job? Oh well.

The second activity of the day was a walking tour with Findlay, hunting down the sites of lost distilleries. Having read David Stirk’s Whiskypolis book recently, Gianluigi was already acquainted with the story of the 30-odd distilleries that used to be in town. Only two survived all the shocks of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, that led to many closures in the 1920s and 1930s. The two are obviously Glen Scotia (formerly only Scotia) and Springbank, while Glengyle was resurrected in 2004 by J&A Mitchell in order for Campbeltown to retain its official whisky region status. And we’re happy for that, as Kilkerran (the brand name under which they sell Glengyle’s whisky, as the name is owned by another company) is a tremendous dram! Two other old distillery names live on as Springbank variants: Longrow, heavily peated and double distilled), and Hazelburn, unpeated and triple distilled. Some of the spots gave it away that there used to be a distillery – for example, Benmore is a now the name of the street, but you can still see half of its pagoda roof and the name on the old gate.

What remains of a glorious past.

Some others were less straightforward to spot, like the site of Lochead distillery, which is now home to…a Tesco. Apparently, when they had their application approved by the Argyll and Bute Council, they were supposed to include in the architecture something that hinted at the fact that there used to be a distillery, so they came up with “pagodas” on the roof. Pardon our French, but they look a bit shite. The old Hazelburn distillery is, instead, one of the best-preserved buildings. Some warehouses of Glen Nevis also survived. Nice touch, during the tour we also popped into Glen Scotia, where we said “hi” to Greg, who gave us the excellent Warehouse Tasting back in December.

The oddest rendition of a pagoda.

After the tour, it was time for lunch back at the Still Guesthouse: scotch pie, keeping it traditional. Common theme for the whole week: the food was delicious, we were (happily) spoiled! Anyway, after the one-hour lunch break, we were split in two groups, Graham and the two of us in one, and Robert and Stephen in the other. While Robert and Stephen went on to look at mashing, fermenting and distilling, we went back to the maltings, where the staff showed us all the nitty and gritty of what is done there. First, we watched the steep tank being filled in with barley, and how it gets evened out. To see how the steep tank gets filled with water, we had to wait for the next morning.

Step 1, filling the steep tank with barley.

Anyway, once spread on the floor, the barley is turned every four hours to keep it aerated and break up rootlets. The three of us got to turn a few rows of barley with both the grubber (manual) and the turner (electric). Every step and relevant information is noted down on paper registers, things like when the barley is turned, temperature, humidity, etc. It was quite exciting to see some old registers going back many years!

Quality control.

Turning…Less easy than we thought!

The team then took us outside in the internal courtyard, where they keep both wet and dry (under a shed) peat, and where the old oil tanker still lays, which was used before they switched to natural gas. Back inside, we went up to the last floor, which is not used to spread malt, but to store the barley from two local farms (wink, wink) waiting to be processed. It’s also where we could see the top of the malt bins (and a conveyer belt!).

The oldest destoner we ever saw.

We then checked out the destoner above the Porteus mill, a very old piece of equipment in a wooden box, which weighs the malt to send to the mill in 25kg “coups”. All very nerdy details, and of course we loved it!

With that, our first day was over. While the afternoon was a bit slow, it was a solid start of the school, and we were looking forward to the second day! We went back to the guesthouse, where Sandra had cooked us a delicious dinner, chicken Balmoral with fava beans and mashes, followed by a trifle: we still dream about it! We then had a couple of drams with Stephen and Robert in the sitting room, before retiring to our rooms.

Stay tuned to know more about our second day! Until then, slàinte!

Springbank Whisky School

Link: https://www.springbank.scot/whisky-school/

#71.3 The North-eastern Highlands

Lost in Brechin: Glencadam distillery

TL; DR: Another weekend, another trip to the northeast, destination: Brechin, home to Glencadam distillery! They just opened a new visitor centre after a substantial upgrade, and it is very cozy and charming: well done! We enjoyed the basic but informative tour, and a warm and hearty soup afterwards.

(missed Part 2/Part 1?)

The weekend after our trip to Royal Brackla it was time again to hit the road with Mr Vantastic. And again, our destination was the northeast of Scotland. This time we had two distilleries to visit, so we stayed away for the night, hoping not to freeze. We left Leith mid-morning, the weather was not as good as during our trip to Royal Brackla, but not as wet as the one to Glenglassaugh: overcast and some rain here and there. We didn’t stop for lunch, as we’d prepared two sandwiches with the delicious rock salt and rosemary focaccia from Lidl: when it’s fresh, truly good stuff! Our first stop was Glencadam distillery, in Brechin. We arrived in town at around 1.30pm, but we parked away from the distillery, in what was marked as a potential stopover for the night. It is near the river South Esk but it didn’t look that great, so we postponed the decision to after the tour. It took us about 20 minutes to cross the town, walk alongside a football ground and a cemetery, to then arrive at the distillery.

Glencadam has been on our radar for a while, as their single malts became very popular among whisky enthusiasts: other than delicious, many of their expressions (except for a couple available in supermarkets) are naturally presented (non-chill filtered and natural colour), and mostly well priced: if you haven’t tried it yet, get a bottle of the 10-year-old, great stuff! After the pandemic the distillery has been mostly closed to public, with tours only available on Tuesdays and Thursdays, previous direct contact, but for a short period of time. When they closed again (to visitors, the distillery was still in production), it was for an important reason: works started to build a visitor centre, including a cafe and a dram bar. It was also to celebrate their 200^th anniversary, so an opening was expected in 2025. Almost at the end, but they finally opened in November! As we arrived, we noticed the all new and tidy exterior, with an old still used as decoration and, given the period, a couple of cask-stave made Christmas trees.

Reward after a wee walk in the cold, Glencadam distillery.

In the visitor centre we were welcomed by Michael, the manager, an old acquaintance as he used to work at Kingsbarn distillery, and we met him many times at the Fife Whisky Festival. While waiting for the tour to start, we browsed the shop: other than the known expressions, everything was set up for a couple of bottle-your-own bottlings, but they were not available yet.

Our guide was Brian Townsend, local from Brechin, the whisky historian who wrote Scotch Missed, a book about lost distilleries (here a review by Kate Watt, of Watt Whisky independent bottler). It was us and another two couples on the tour, which started in a room with panels about the history of the distillery and a big map of Brechin on the floor. The distillery was founded in 1825 by George Cooper, who sold it only two years later. Between the mid-1800s and the early 1900s it changed hands a few times, until it was purchased by Hiram Walker in 1954, which in turn was acquired by Allied Domecq in 1987. The distillery was mothballed in 2000, but finally bought by Angus Dundee, the current owner, in 2003. The history and a high-level explanation of how whisky is made was covered (possibly too extensively) in an exhibition with a series of videos that preceded the actual tour of production.

We didn’t take pictures in the exhibition area, so you get us instead.

Going into the nerdy production details, they get 30 tons of fully unpeated barley three times a week mainly from Bairds, sometimes from Crisp: in both cases, they aim for Scottish barley. The mill, built in the 1920s, was acquired in 1965 and produces grist with the usual components split (husk/grit/flour 20/70/10). Five tons of grist are added to each mash, first with 20,000 litres of water at 65°C, then another 8,500 litre for the second water, and finally the third water (another 20,000 litres) captures the remaining sugars and is used as first water in the next mash. The draff is collected by local farmers once or twice a day, to feed cattle. Of the six washbacks, only two are made of stainless steel, but they will be replaced next year by Oregon pine ones, like the other four.

Oregon pine and stainless steel washbacks.

Another improvement was to get the water wheel to generate some of the electricity, replacing the original one dating back to 1824-25 that worked for over a century. The new one can be observed behind glass. Instead, a feature that is gone forever, is the original Doig ventilator, aka the pagoda, which was destroyed in a fire.

Can’t see much of the whater wheel behind the glass.

Back to production, we learned that fermentation lasts 48 hours, a short one, and is triggered by 13kg of distillers’ yeast. They only have one pair of stills, and in the second distillation, they start collecting the spirit after 10 minutes of foreshots (we didn’t get the cut points though). Coming out of the still room, we were in a small yard where the draff truck comes in, and from there we reached one of the six warehouses on site, to the right of the visitor centre. Two of these are dunnage style and date back to the 1800s, while three are from the 1950s and one is a modern racked warehouse.

A glimpse of the still room from the outside (no pitcures allowed inside).

Charming dunnage warehouse.

It was then time to go back to the visitor centre for the tasting: we had three drams in front of us, the Glencadam 10y (46%, fully ex-bourbon casks), its bigger brother 13y (46%, same casks), and the Reserva Andalucia, a non-age statement expression finished for a year in ex-sherry casks (46%). Recently, this became part of a series of many cask finishes expressions (white Port, tawny Port, Amarone, PX sherry, etc). It was a basic tasting, but enjoyable nonetheless…When we were about to finish, Micheal brought us another dram: a 17y “triple Port” cask, a nice and delicious touch!

A solid, wee lineup.

After the tasting, we went upstairs to the cafe for a warm soup, but Gianluigi got tempted by the dram bar (they have most Glencadam and Tomintoul expressions available) and got another dram (a delicious 15y finished in Madeira wine cask, 46%). It was a very pleasant moment, the cafe is a very cozy space to relax with bites and drams. Because in the meanwhile we’d decided to leave Brechin, we didn’t indulged in more drams at the bar (hopefully next time), and we left the premise, not before getting a signed copy of Brian’s book.

Christmasy atmosphere at the distillery.

We walked a bit around Brechin, but it was dark already and the visit to the cathedral was not that satisfying. We visited the site where the North Port (or Brechin) distillery used to be, now a CoOp (*sad trumpet*). We left town and arrived at the Cock and Bull pub, north of Aberdeen, a pub that lets campervans stay if a meal is consumed there. Despite arriving early (not even 6pm) they sent us away asking to come back at 8pm. We did, but we had to wait almost another hour to order as they admitted that they thought we wouldn’t come back (in spite of us leaving our names for a table). What a shite way to treat customers, probably we won’t be back.

What used to be North Port distillery.

Overall, our visit at Glencadam distillery was very good, we had a nice time. The new visitor centre looks great, and while the experience we chose was very basic, especially the tasting, it was interesting nonetheless (to note, they offer a pricier experience, maybe next time). We’d definitely suggest visiting the distillery to friends, in particular for those early into their whisky journey. The only thing we didn’t like was the pricing of the bottles in the shop: above retail, including some shops on the Royal Mile (obviously we’re not considering the big online retailers), but in general everything beyond the core range was slightly pricy, with no discounts available to those taking the tour. It always puzzles us how some producers seem to punish instead of rewarding the enthusiasts making the effort to travel to the distillery.

Stay tuned for the last tour around the northeast of Scotland, coming next week! Until then, slàinte!

The GlenCadam Distillery Tour

Price: £23.58 pp (£22.50 + fee, December 2025)

Duration: 1hr 30min

Tasting: 3 drams, Glencadam 10y (46%), Glencadam 13y (46%), Reserva Andalucia (NAS, 46%)

Target: everyone

Value for money: very good

Highlights: the cafe above the visitor centre

Recommended: yes

Link: https://www.glencadamwhisky.com/

#59 Another Tuscan detour

In the land of Brunello

TL; DR: While in Rome, do as the Romans do…while in Tuscany, go visit a winery. This time we went to Fattoria dei Barbi, in the land of Brunello di Montalcino. In this magnificent landscape, we learned about how Brunello is made during the visit of the historical cellar, and we tried some great wines.

One of the best things about our whisky journey is the renovated pleasure that now comes with eating or drinking in general. This is because of the continuous focus on aromas and flavours during whisky tastings, which slowly but constantly enhanced our senses of smell and taste. This didn’t happen in isolation though: during a 2018 trip in Thailand (no whisky stories there), we attended a cooking class which opened our minds in terms of spices use and flavour pairings. Over time, having a meal, a cup of coffee, or a pint, or even a walk in a meadow or in a wood have become much more pleasant experiences (and no worries, we don’t eat meadows…usually).

And here we come to wine: because of our Italian upbringing, many people assume we are good at the “wine thing” although, spoiler alert, we are definitely not. This is despite wine being homemade within our families, by Teresa’s grandfather and Gianluigi great-grandfather. Also, being brought up in Italy meant that wine was often on the table at dinner and during weekends. And, while we know the basics and we have our preferences (generally bold red wines that go well with meat, better if they spent some time in wood), we never went down this rabbit hole. Ironically, this started to come around (slowly) thanks to whisky: in 2021 we visited a winery in Tuscany because we learned that Glenallachie finished a whisky in casks from that winery: Grattamacco. As for fortified wines, we went to a few port houses in our 2022 holiday in Porto. We also indulged in some winery visits and tastings in Australia last year. Still not experts, but definitely more “flavour curious”.

So, what’s better than improving our wine knowledge by visiting a winery in Tuscany? The occasion came in April this year (2025), for Teresa’s mother birthday: together with her sisters, she organised a two-day trip to Val d’Orcia, one of those places that look like a classic Tuscany postcard (wait, it is a Tuscany postcard!) – smooth rolling hills, small medieval towns on top of them, vineyards and meadows (again, not eaten). We left Florence early, and by mid-morning we were in Pienza: a town famous for its pecorino cheese (one of many), and contrary to others, purposedly (re)built by Pope Pius II in 1462, to reflect the ideals of the Renaissance. We then visited the charming Bagno Vignoni (a village famous for a very old spa), before stopping for lunch nearby, where we (meaning Teresa and Gianluigi) shared a very tasty 1.2kg “Bistecca Fiorentina”.

A spa village – Bagno Vignoni, very charming.

Maybe not charming, but still delicious bistecca fiorentina.

In the afternoon, we drove towards Montalcino, the hometown of the renowned Brunello of Montalcino wine. Until a while ago we never heard of a Brunello cask finished whisky, but the independent bottler Ferg & Harris recently close this gap.

Back to wine, the winery we chose was Fattoria dei Barbi – the tour was quite cheap, only €10 for the winery visit, while for the tasting we could pick (beforehand) between a few options: we chose a basic tasting (€25, four wines from the basic range) and an upgraded one (€35, focused on Brunello). The winery is very pretty, hidden from the main road and surrounded by woodland and, obviously, vineyards.

Just about avoided photo-bombing at the start of the tour.

The tour started in the shop, from which we could access the historical cellar, a series of connected rooms full of big barrels for fermentation and maturation. Interestingly, these barrels had a ‘tappo colmatore’ on top, a Leonardo Da Vinci invention, a lid to verify the level of liquid in the barrel and to allow the release of gas that might generate during maturation.

A new discovery for us – the ‘tappo colmatore’.

While moving from one room to the next one, our guide covered the history of the Colombini’s family, owners of the estate for centuries. Originally a farm, wine making became prevalent in the 1800s thanks to Pio Colombini, one of the producers who started bottling Brunello instead of selling casks to grocers (‘vinai’). His son Giovanni expanded the business and made it one of the first to sell Brunello overseas. But what makes a wine a Brunello? The rules were set in the 1980s, but in a nutshell, it needs to be 100% ‘Sangiovese grosso’ grapes, and the wine needs to age at least 5 years, of which at least two in oak barrels (mostly French oak) and at least 4 months in the bottle (the remaining time is usually spent in big wooden vats, with the above mentioned ‘tappo colmatore’). Similarly, for the Brunello Riserva the years are six, with 6 months spent in bottle (the rest is similar).

No, these are not the hogsheads we’re used to.

We didn’t get too geeky on the tour, so we don’t have many technical details to share, but listening to family stories while admiring the old cellar was a great experience. The wine cellar was spectacular, with bottles of all vintages (including our birth years, sob). Some you could buy, but you needed to enquire, and they might decide not to sell anyway. However, the guide admitted that many of those might probably be well past their best, and now they are just collectible items.

So much history…

…and yes, we’re that old.

The tour came to an end, and we went to the next building, the bar and tasting room. The basic flight showcased a wide range of products: we started with a white wine, Vermentino dei Barbi (vintage 2023), then moved to a “table wine” called Brusco dei Barbi (2020, 90% Sangiovese and the remainder a variety of grapes). The third wine was their Rosso di Montalcino (2023, 100% Sangiovese grape but not a Brunello). The crescendo ended with their main product, the Brunello di Montalcino (2019, blue label), honestly another level compared to the previous three. The other flight was focused on Brunello, and it took where the previous one left off with the Brunello di Montalcino, followed by another Brunello, single vineyard, called Vigna dei Fiori (2020, white label) which was great, and finally with the Brunello Riserva (2019, red label), truly stunning. We loved the combination of oak and fruitiness in those last three wines.

This one was beautiful…

and this one, wow!

After the winery, we drove to Montalcino, the village, another beautiful “Tuscany-postcard” village, where we had a walk under a light rain and a gloomy sky, before a half pint in a local Circolo Arci (and from this, you can tell we’ve been living in Scotland for a long time) and the walk back to the flat booked for the night.

Beautiful sunset in Montalcino.

The next day, we spent some time at the Sant’Antimo Abbey, before driving to Siena for a stroll in this beautiful (albeit quite touristy) city, and lunch. From there, we went back to Florence.

Sant’Antimo Abbey behind the olive trees.

Classic picture of busy Siena.

And so, this is our latest “malternative” exploration, again in the esoteric world of wine. Overall, the visit was not as good as the one at Grattamacco of a few years back (maybe because this one was less intimate), but it was still very interesting and informative. The trio of Brunello’s was great though, something really worth to dig into for all the flavour-driven people.

We should say ‘salute’, but we keep our tradition instead, so, until next time, slainte!

Fattoria dei Barbi wine tour and tasting

Price: €10.00 pp (April 25) + €20.00/€35.00 for the tasting

Duration: 1hr (+ tasting at your own pace)

Tasting: the regular one, Vermentino, Brusco dei Barbi, Rosso di Montalcino, and Brunello di Montalcino; the advanced one, Brunello di Montalcino, Brunello di Montalcino Vigna del Fiore, and Brunello di Montalcino Riserva (vintage may change)

Target: everyone

Value for money: good

Highlights: the historical cellar

Recommended: we haven’t visited any other local wineries, but we had a good time

Link: https://www.fattoriadeibarbi.it/